Erotisme

Rivane Neuenschwander

As with Hand Catching Lead, Erotisme finds inspiration in Yvonne Rainer’s Hand Movie (1966). The film is based on a sign language diagram that illustrates an article on eroticism published in the surrealist periodical Le da Costa encyclopédique (Paris 1947-8), and in which each gesture corresponds to a verb – invented or not – with sexual connotations. In the video, those gestures are staged one by one against a neutral background, shot in black and white, and interspersed with images of each word, recorded crudely on colored wood surfaces. In addition, hand and shadow are interpreted by different actresses simultaneously, providing a subtle dissonance between the two movements.